Two children ages seven and nine got lost in the woods one night last week in the town of Pitcher, in Chenango County. They were last seen playing outside near their home.
Four New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) rangers, along with five other local and state agencies, scoured the woods for nearly seven hours. They located the children at 4:45 a.m., cold but otherwise in good condition.
After a medical screening, the children were reunited with their parents.
The following reports are excerpted from DEC:
Rangers continued their recent run of busting up teen forest parties last week. On the night of May 7 rangers patrolling Tioga County State Lands encountered 20 teenagers partying in Ketchumville State Forest. Two teens who admitted planning the party were ticketed for underage possession of alcohol. Rangers spoke to vehicle drivers to ensure they were not under the influence of drugs or alcohol, then broke up the rest of the group.
It was a rough week for middle-aged hikers. Two 42-year olds injured themselves in separate incidents. One hiker twisted an ankle on Blackhead Mountain in Greene County; the second wrenched their knee while hiking the Van Hoevenberg trail in Essex County. Rangers assisted both hikers out of the woods to safety.
On the evening of May 1, two rangers helped put out a nine-acre brush on private land in the town of Forestport. Days later, a ranger investigated a complaint of turbid water in Shackham Brook on Morgan Hill State Forest. The stream water appeared cloudy, so the ranger walked upstream until he entered private land where he found someone pumping out water from a private pond straight into the stream. After telling the landowner to quit pumping, the ranger turned the case over to DEC police for further investigation.
Steve Featherstone covers the outdoors for The Post-Standard, syracuse.com and NYUP.com. Contact him at sfeatherstone@syracuse.com or on Twitter @featheroutdoors. You can also follow along with all of our outdoors content at newyorkupstate.com/outdoors/ or follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/upstatenyoutdoors.
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